I woke to an email from a helpful celebsindisgrace blog-reader alerting me to Kanye West‘s onstage award-show rant. My day’s online news featured on-court US Open meltdown by tennis superstar Serena Williams. In the evening, I went to Tracy Slater’s super-cool Four Stories Reading Series,where I discussed Kanye, et al, with Sebastian Stuart (check out his celeb.-obsessed novel THE HOUR BETWEEN) and where author/comic Steve Brykman urged the audience to interrupt his own reading with Wilson-esque cries of ‘YOU LIE!”
Why such a spate of ‘disgraceful’ outcries? My husband believes we may be at a ‘pendulum end.’ Washington Post columnist Michael Kinsley decries the ‘umbrage wars.’ Meanwhile, the once-obscure Joe Wilson– proving that outcry, like crime, can pay– is suddenly a household name raising millions online. How, President Obama asked wistfully on 60 Minutes, can we make civility interesting? Do we even want to? Do you have a favorite or most-hated celeb. outburst? What would your Inner Joe Wilson yell on national TV? Here’s your chance to rant without making a spectacle of yourself on YouTube. WDYT?
PS: Breaking; everyone piling on Kanye, even Obama, in ‘off the record’ outburst…
PPS: and Litotes reminds us there can be good reason for ‘outbursts’– see this update on the Iraqi shoe-thrower…
